I want to build a IRC client in Javascript, maybe using jQuery, but I am struggling a little in getting started.
I have looked a little at http://qwebirc.org/ and how they are doing things, but they have A LOT of code doing specific things only to their project.
I have searched the net for a short example, that lets me start, so I could build further. Any suggestions on where to look, or someone who can come up with an example?
The backend is a more important consideration than whether or not you use jQuery or anything like that. As you may be aware, you can't really write a full browser-based IRC client in Javascript; the JS merely uses XMLHTTPRequest to collect data from an IRC-connected server-side socket implemented in something like PHP.
To that effect, you might have a lot more luck looking for some kind of PHP IRC library (like this: http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpsmartirc/) and then setting up the client frontend separately which will alleviate, to some extent, the "LOT of code doing specific things only to their project".
Elliott, the backend no is more important consideration than interface frontend, but your sugestion is a good ideia for a expert programmer begin a Ajax IRC Client!
PHP Smart IRC is a package PEAR that aims to implement IRC Protocol communication via PHP sockets.
The advantage is that the implementation of commands is ready, there is no need to start this class from the begin.
Any attempt will merely be using AJAX as an intermediate step between an IRC client/server running on the hosting web server.
Using jquery.ui.chatbox as the interface with messages being sent and received via AJAX would give you the flexibility to implement it in any number of ways e.g.:
Here's an open source project that has made some progress to making a AJAX IRC client: https://github.com/naneau/node-irc-client
